Closure
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: Cold skin and a harsh smile. But she thinks she still has him by the heart. Gin x Rangiku. Pre-manga.


Disclaimer: Bleach and its respective characters are property of Kubo Tite.

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She can't remember how long ago the hail started. Thanks to her headache, blinding and _sake_-induced, each collapse of ice into water over metal digs in like a pick to her skull. She's drunk on something else too, something that doesn't cool the burn in her throat or calm the currents stroking her skin.

Over her spine is where she's most vulnerable. He knows how to touch it.

Rangiku's prickly by nature. He's just found out how to soothe her right, petting her flushed forehead, finger-combing through a tangled gold mane to finally have her purring and curled up inside his robe. The cloth smells fresh off the cotton loom, the exact same scent as her new set of hakamas and kosodes. Timely promotions always ensure another uniform to replace old dreams.

Gin's already decided on a present for her. Kinda narrowed it down to one was what he'd done so far. He'd thought about it, sure, whenever he was out on those walks, letting Aizen enjoy the sparse softness of his own voice while he squinted through his eyelashes at the gaudy petals that wafted across the footpath. Dirty yellow, they often are. Almost tawny, like her hair. He has a bouquet stashed in the corner of a desk drawer in his office. It's tied with pink ribbon, hardly his favorite but he's sure he knows a thing more about gutter flower-girls and their fondness for all gifts frilly. More so than the three new recruits gawping at her as she scurried through to him with her mouth running on good news and glad tidings.

He loves it when she calls him 'taichou' for a joke. It's only then that he measures how far he's come, each giant leap counted with the flecks of delight in her eyes. She adores how well the new white robe drapes him, reminding her of a new sheet of snow in winter. Ice still frosts her toes like it used to when they were scamps in rags, reigning high and mighty over their nation of scavenged treasures. When her toe-nails catch the moonlight and glow, she giggles. It's too magical, really. She'd call herself a princess except that princesses wield scepters and not swords.

He's no king, he knows. And he's content to wallow in the shadows, if it means that he gets to stay like this with her. Her hands nestled in a fond clasp loose around his neck and shoulders, her head downy soft against his chest, stray strands tickling his bare skin at the gap between the two halves of his rumpled undershirt. He doesn't dream of much gold, save the twine of wavy hair he fondles with the most delicate of touches. Gin doesn't tolerate florid prose spread over dubious truths but Aizen's speech is silver.

Gin's a magpie, as he thinks. He likes the gleam of competition, comeliness, completion. Opportunities spring like daisies if anyone would take the time to notice what they trample beneath their feet. If she could draw, Rangiku would tilt him back until she has him right where she wants him, grinning up at her instead of patting her on the head like an insolent little kitten he owns. Her independence of thought is hard-won, scrubbed down with combat scars and verbal jibes until it shines smooth and deadly. She sketches him in her heart's eye, soft towards the corners where the steel is a subtle presence.

Thankfully, Rangiku's always been a cat person. Dogs are too loyal for any good, too selfless, too inhuman for her liking. Now cats, she figures, are nice and selfish, unashamed to come and go as they like. She presumes Gin to be a cat too, shaded in all his mystery and self-centeredness. It comforts her to know that he is someone she can aspire to become. Someone not so out of her reach, for once. Despite what he playfully mocks her with, she knows she's getting there, snuggling closer and closer to his bony unhuggable frame that only she knows her way around.

It troubles him, despite himself.

Gin used to believe he could have it all. The girl and the gold, the love and the legends. He used to believe he could swoop down and snatch the chain of his desires in one go like in the games he and she used to play with abandoned pieces of string and flyaway shreds of paper. But whenever he doubts himself, he remembers that speech is silver and guile is gold, that death's a fair price to hang over one's head for the risk of failure. Rangiku thinks he's being annoying again, insufferably silent, and she sneaks another kiss from him, not noticing the fault-lines cracking his smile for a second there.

It warms her heart to know that they get to share this moment out of everything and she allows herself a flare of happiness as her mind drifts above the hail-stones rattling the roof. He's promised her a lesson in flying or what it seems to be. Nothing special but a burst of reiatsu at her heels, sending her spiraling to greater heights than ever before. He's more than glad to do so since it gets harder to care for the ground with each cloud they surpass.

It's not the cold that's bothering him as she finally lets go, drifting to an illusion spawned from his own. In the end, his office and the bouquet are the furthest things from his mind, so he's barely a buoy bobbing above a calm sea though the tremors below don't leave him as easily.

Rangiku's beautiful when she's vulnerable. More so when she's alive, fighting for what she's accomplished.

Gin only entertains the thought of leaving her in her bed and heading back to where he belongs. He smiles, amused that he even spares one for a potential despot standing over clusters of lilies with a dangerous shine reflected in eyes that appear so kindly on the surface.

The moon ascends and Gin's still warm.


End file.
